Recent graduates Nina Baggett and Adam Bronson are co-first authors on new work examining the differences between the absence of the XerC recombinase and the loss of recombinase function (via mutation or drug treatments) with respect to the basis for pyocin overproduction. Their work shows that only deletion of, and not inactivation of, XerC induces non-canonical pyocin expression. Moreover, known peptide inhibitors of bacterial recombinases do not induce pyocin expression. Their work is published in Miicrobiology Spectrum.